Giving Days: What's the Best Day of the Week to Hold Ours?

At BoostMySchool, we are often asked by our customers running their first Giving Day - “What’s the best day of the week to hold our Giving Day?”. It turns out - it depends on your unique school community and the story it has to tell!

One Day. Many Stories.

Giving Days are one of the most effective ways of attracting new donors, reengaging previous donors, and one of the top fundraising strategies for increasing average gifts among your donor community as a whole. Identifying a genuine giving day story will make engaging your campus and community of donors meaningful and effective. On giving day, you want your donors to see themselves as part of the narrative, where the day holds personal significance and impact because of their association with you.

Along with selecting a name and creating a compelling story, choosing a day to honor and celebrate your campus community’s unique significance is the cornerstone for any giving day success. This got us wondering, was there a day of the week that held favor? Digging deeper into the data from the last several years of partnering with schools, here’s what we learned:

Giving Day Success for EVERY Day of the Week.

While Wednesday and Thursday have been the most popular Giving Days on BoostMySchool (that were not #GivingTuesday), wildly successful Giving Days were also experienced on every day of the week. We saw many examples of powerful stories for Giving Day success that occurred no matter the day and we are sharing a fabulous five for your Giving Day inspiration!

Monday: Founders Day: A Day of Giving | Thayer Academy

There were no Monday blues for Thayer Academy when selecting the first day of the week to celebrate their founders with a community-wide event, Founder’s Day: A Day of Giving. With nine different challenges met - including unlocking a $50,000 anonymous challenge by surpassing the 1,000-supporter goal, two leaderboard competitions, and an exclusive live faculty performance, Thayer Academy’s giving day proved Mondays can be fun!

Tuesday: Rosary’s Day of Giving | Rosary Academy

As days of the week go, Tuesdays don’t have the high profile of Monday or Friday, but it has become just as impactful. Rosary Academy’s #WomenOnaMission launched their annual giving campaign on a Tuesday in October and cleverly promoted it as #GivingTuesday arrived early on campus! And when it did – Rosary exceeded their goal by over 232%!

Wednesday: Tabor’s Day of Giving | Tabor Academy

Wednesday has been referred to as “Hump Day” for decades, and for good reason! It’s smack in the middle of the week and has the weekend within easy reach. But Tabor Academy’s giving day should have been called “Winsday”. Their Wednesday event, called Tabor’s Day of Giving included a “Give to What You Love” challenge that was so successful, the anonymous donor repeated the $25,000 challenge three times in one day!

Thursday: Growing the Community of Saint Joseph’s College | Saint Joseph’s College of Maine

Thursdays feel like the well-deserved break in a given week - Friday’s Friday. It was also the day of the week that Saint Joseph’s College sought to grow their community during a Giving Day campaign. With plenty of social media sharing, heartfelt testimonials, and community challenges, this College’s giving day landed on the day of the week that is also known to be a day when donors feel most generous. Living up to that reputation, Thursday helped Saint Joseph’s College raise more than $200,000 AND exceed their supporter goal!

Friday: Day of Giving| Saint Paul’s Choir School

TGIF – a favorite day of the week for many and also happened to be the day selected for Saint Paul’s Choir School’s Day of Giving. Chosen to honor and celebrate the students whose graduation would have taken place on that day in June, Saint Paul’s launched their day of giving. They released more than a dozen video updates sharing the transformational impact of connecting donors to the boys of Saint Paul’s Choir School. Exceeding their goal for this meaningful giving day campaign, St. Paul’s Choir School ended that Friday with over 250 more reasons to be thankful!

It’s Gonna Be a Great Day!

As we’ve seen from the previous examples, when choosing a date for your school’s giving day, there really is no universal “best time”. What will have a greater impact on your giving day success is thoughtfully considering the distinctive history and culture of your school.

With 365 days in a year, there are likely dozens that are special to your school community. Whether it is the day of its founding, leadership anniversary, capital campaign kick-off, a historical athletic rivalry, or your school’s admissions decision day, there are no shortages of days to build a dedicated giving day around and strengthen the connection to your school community. You have the freedom to build your giving day in a way that fits your school community best – including picking the day of the week!